Long Beach CC High Hurdle Heritage

The 16 state high hurdle titles were won by the following Vikings:

Coached by Joe Lanning:

1957 Dick Fischl 14.5

1961 Dee Andrews  14.5

1986 Everett White 14.01

1987 Terry Johnson 14.24

1989 Sherman Morris 13.85

1993 Dominique Arnold 14.17 (American HH record-holder)

1994 Frank Guialdo 14.18

1995 Mike Harris 14.33               

1997 Robby Hughes 14.14   

Coached by Johnny Estrada:

1998 Brandon Brown 13.88

1999 Dominique Degrammont 13.85

2000 Dominique Degrammont 13.82

2001 Rico Hatter 14.39

2002 Matt Mason 14.08             

Coached by John Hall (present LBCC Head T&F Coach/LBCC alum):

2006 Vannie Prudhomme 14.49  

2008 Vannie Prudhomme 13.82 

The LBCC school record for the 110HH is 13.77.  The following three athletes have achieved that mark and all are represented as school record holders:

1988 Terry Johnson (Coach-Joe Lanning)

2000 Dominique Degrammont (Coach-Johnny Estrada)

2009 Michael Hancock (Coach-John Hall)

Mark MacDonald, Washington State hurdles Coach,  posted a humorous, if not bizarre, story on Jeshua Anderson, two-time NCAA 400IH Champion, who gave up football this fall to concentrate on a career in track and field.

     “Because of Jesh's world ranking, he is subject to unannounced drug testing by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). This week in practice, the drug testing agency showed up right before practice. Since Josh was all warmed up and ready to run, he couldn't "produce a sample." The testing agent said he could do the workout but he could never leave his sight. On this day we were outside doing some hill runs. Because the tester couldn't keep up, he was in his car driving up and down the hill with his pee cup waiting for Jesh to "produce a sample." Just another day in the life of a world class track and field athlete.  –WSU T&F website

Correction...Coach Joe Mangan of College of San Mateo recently brought our attention to an error in the factoid on the first state CC alumnus (American born) to run the mile under four minutes. Tom Smith, who competed for Chabot for one year, was numero uno with a 3:58.3 win in 1979 at an obscure July 4 meet in tiny Tillsonborg (Canada). Smith went on to run for Colorado.
    Less than two years later Doug Padilla, who also ran only one year at Chabot before transferring to BYU, placed 3rd in a 1981 Daly City indoor meet at 3:56.61. Padilla became an Olympian and ran at the international level for nearly a decade.

     The first American to break the four minute barrier was Don Bowden, then an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He won the Pacific AAU mile  in 3:58.7 on June 1, 1957
at University of Pacific's track (Stockton). It was nearly two years before another American broke the barrier.
     Hungarian Laszlo Tabori, LA Valley CC's  ultra-successful distance coach of the late 1960s-early '70s, was the sports third person to ever run the mile  under four minutes.
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